Friday Finds for Writers
Writing-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend.
Have a good weekend, everyone. See you back here on Monday.
Author Archive
Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat
Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish news, primarily of the literary variety, from around the Web.
Shabbat shalom.
Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress: How Some People Get to Write
During the past week, an item from The New Yorker‘s “Page Turner” blog lit up the writerly Internet. Everywhere I looked, it seemed that people were admiring, sharing, and otherwise recommending Roxana Robinson’s “How I Get to Write,” which details the routine that the author follows to bridge that gap each morning between awakening and reaching the moment when she “start[s] in, tapping at the keyboard.”
But in some venues–a listserv for freelance writers, a Facebook discussion–I noticed that a few people were commenting that Robinson’s routine, while idyllic, sounded highly impractical. Some noted that their partners wouldn’t be as accommodating as Robinson’s husband is to the habit of “avoid[ing] conversation.” Others observed that while Robinson can focus on simply preparing her own morning coffee, many other people have children (and even pets) to feed and prepare for the day. For my part, I was acutely conscious of the absence of any mention of a need to leave the house and commute to a 9-5 job where writing fiction certainly wasn’t part of the position description.
To be sure, Robinson wasn’t necessarily prescribing a routine that the rest of us writers can (or should) follow. At some point, I think, we all realize that we need to find our own paths, even if others’ examples may prove to be illustrative. Personally, I appreciate knowing about others’ paths–sometimes. I’m simply not that interested in “how I write” accounts from those who seem to have few obligations beyond their own pages, or who are blessed with reliably ample chunks of time to structure as they choose more days of the week than not (yes, I’m talking to you, professors who teach one or two workshops each semester, and whose own writing, moreover, is considered part of the research/scholarship component of your college or university appointment).
Much for instructive, for me, is a piece like another one I read this past week. (more…)
Monday Markets for Writers
Monday brings the weekly batch of no-fee competitions/contests, paying submission calls, and jobs for those of us who write, especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.
From My Bookshelf: Given Away, by Jennifer Barber
My e-mailbox recently offered a lovely surprise: a message from Jennifer Barber, whose name was familiar to me from Salamander, the fine literary journal that she edits from Suffolk University in Boston. She was writing to let me know about her latest poetry collection, Given Away, which was published by Kore Press, and to offer me a complimentary copy, which I gladly accepted.
The book’s cover bears a blurb from Vijay Seshadri, describing Given Away as a collection of “beautiful and rigorous poems.” I’d agree. I can’t help sensing that I should reread this book many times, that I haven’t even begun to absorb the deep meanings embedded in these challenging pieces.
Some of the poems that have gripped me most strongly are those with fairly clear Jewish connections. Take, for example, “nefesh,” which was also published in Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Or “A Poet of Medieval Spain,” which appeared first Cerise Press. In a note, Barber explains that this poem “draws on Peter Cole’s anthology The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) to imagine an anonymous poet of 12th century Andalusia.”
I’m grateful to Jennifer Barber for offering me this introduction to her work (and for the especially generous inclusion of a sample copy of Salamander in the package she mailed to me). I look forward to spending even more time with her poems.